IF YOU were to ask me who I’d like to be the next Cardiff City manager – and forgive me for assuming Dave Jones is on his way – then it would be Sam Allardyce.

IF YOU were to ask me who I’d like to be the next Cardiff City manager – and forgive me for assuming Dave Jones is on his way – then it would be Sam Allardyce.

Hang on a minute, hear me out.

The former Bolton, Newcastle and Blackburn boss isn’t renowned for getting his sides to produce champagne football, I realise that.

Furthermore, would he even want to step down from the Premier League and could the Bluebirds afford him? The answer to the first of those questions is probably yes, as he now looks to be heading to relegated West Ham.

But what Cardiff need more than anything else next term is a leader who can instil some backbone into the squad, someone who can prompt his charges to eke out a 1-0 win on a rainy Tuesday night at Doncaster when the pressure is really on.

I’m talking about a grinder, a guy whose philosophy is based around nicking a goal and then not conceding.

A fellow who, if the side are a goal down at half time, can trigger a turnaround with a dressing room rollicking and a bit of shrewd tactical tinkering.

In short, I’d like to see someone take over who can offer all the things Cardiff, to my mind, appeared to lack under Dave Jones.

You know, that was the real triumph of Neil Warnock – another proper manager – at QPR last term.

For all the flamboyance of Adel Taraabt, I lost count of the number of times Rangers simply dogged out three points. That’s what champions do, I suppose.

It was feast or famine for Jones’ Cardiff, they were either winning five on the trot or in the midst of a six-week long barren spell. But QPR were relentless.

I reflect on this having spent two weeks on holiday in Cyprus during which time Cardiff bombed yet again in the play-offs, and the Swans, as predicted in this column time and again, usurped them by reaching tomorrow’s Wembley final.

Don’t think for a moment it’s just the people of South Wales who had high expectations of the Bluebirds.

I watched both semi-final games against Reading – the second leg admittedly through the slits of my fingers – in the company of a bunch of good-natured Londoners at a bar down the road from our apartment.

When it finished 0-0 at the Madejski Stadium, to a man they predicted an easy passage for Cardiff, despite the fact that as soon as Craig Bellamy had gone off injured the Bluebirds had looked like they would struggle to beat a parks outfit.

We reconvened the following Tuesday, and, amid a cacophony of “cor blimeys” and “Gordon Bennetts”, the ineptitude of Jones’ team left my Cockney pals in disbelief.

I feigned nonchalance, saying I wasn’t surprised because Jones’ Cardiff teams seem to flop in all the big matches, but in truth I trudged back that night aghast at, not just the 90 minutes I’d just witnessed, but the craven squandering of a glorious promotion chance over the course of a season.

I’m sure there are all manner of things going on behind the scenes that would explain why, but, whatever the intricacies of the situation are, Jones must know he cannot stay in charge and preserve his credibility among the club’s supporters.

His strength in earlier seasons at the helm was always his ability to build a side from relatively sparse resources and to get the best out of players he brought in.

But, for me, he failed on both those counts last season.

His decision to recruit a glut of loan signings made for an all-or-nothing feel about the campaign.

Had it yielded the ultimate reward then, of course, Cardiff could have built on the achievement and had a good go in the Premier League.

Failure, though, simply highlighted the foundations of sand that we always feared could prove Cardiff’s undoing.

Critical now is that the future of the manager’s position is resolved quickly. There can’t be any dithering.

Cardiff need to know where they stand and who is going to call the shots next season before too much of the summer break is lost.

There’s a rebuilding job to be done, and it must be entrusted to a man of proven experience.

As I say, in an ideal world that, for me, would be Allardyce – wishful; thinking now that he appears to be on his way to Upton Park.

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